Rogue Raccoon
by GatorKitty
Summary: Taking place after the events of Thieves in Time, Sly Cooper finds himself stranded in the middle of the desert. Uncertain of why he's there, he searches for answers. Eventually he ends up wandering around an ancient Sphinx, all to be confronted by a familiar face at the end of the hall. What will happen to our beloved hero? Ideas for Sly 5 plot
1. Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

~ Lost in the Sands of Time ~

I wake up to an unbelievable wave of heat. The feeling takes my entire body by surprise as I slowly gain back my consciousness. It's an overwhelming sensation that leaves me feeling like I'm completely engulfed in flames. Everything from the ground I'm on to the air I breathe is hot and dusty. I'm confused, and I'm sore. What happened? I open my eyes. I find myself laying on my back. There's an intense light right above me that makes it hard to see for a minute, but with a little adjustment I can tell it's the sun. It hurts my eyes so I look away and decide to stand.

Standing up proves to be a bit of a challenge. I have a terrible pain in my left side and my legs feel very heavy and weak. Immediately my mind goes to my cane. I find it laying on the ground close to my feet, pick it up, and use it for support. Upon doing so, my head floods with the pain of a migraine and I have to position myself still for a moment. It throbs and spins so I put a hand on my temple in hopes to rub it away, but it get's wet with red liquid. That explains the headache. I take off my yellow, cloth belt and tie it around my head as a makeshift bandage. The pain slowly starts to relieve itself.

When my head calms down enough, I look around. All I can make out is sand. It's so hot in this place that the heat waves makes everything a blur. I feel pressured by the scorching atmosphere it's so intense! My entire surroundings are like hazy streams of red, yellow, and orange. Perhaps it's my head playing tricks on me? No, it has to just be the heat. Or could it be a mix of both? It's incredibly hot here (wherever "here" is…) and my head still hurts enough that it's possible I could be delusional. After all, I don't even know how I got to this place! How long have I been out here anyway? From the feel of the situation… possibly a day or two? I'm parched and the need for water strikes my entire being with a desperate bang. The sand is kicking up into the torrid air and starts picking at my eyes. I look around, as if I'm going to see a thriving, suburban neighborhood, but the glare of oranges and yellows is all that meets my eye. I keep turning my head in anticipation of finding somewhere to go when it hits me: I am in the middle of nowhere.

I keep looking around; still clinging on to hopes of finding some form of civilization. I roam around the sand a bit and eventually, my eyes come across (what I think is) a building. Hallelujah! I take a long look at the shape to make sure it's not a mirage before finally deciding it's a structure of some sort. Lucky for me, it doesn't seem too far away. I clutch my golden cane and start walking (or rather, limping) towards it. It's painful moving my legs but it doesn't bother me. I just start thinking of the funny times I've had with my buddies and… wait a minute… Where are they?! I stop and flash my glance critically in all directions. I don't see them anywhere! What happened to them? Are they stranded in the desert too? Do they need my help? I begin calling out:

"BENTLEY?! MURRAY?! YOU GUYS OUT HERE?!"

I listen but hear no response, so I yell again.

"HEY! BENTLEY?! MURRAY?! YOU OKAY?! WHERE ARE YOU?!"

Again, no one answers.

I take a moment to think about the situation and decide I should continue my way to the building in front of me. Wherever they may be, I'm not going to make it very far looking for them anyways. After all, they might even be waiting for me inside the building! Maybe they're all waiting for me there… with water! Now that's a party! I push forward.

After about 15 minutes of treading, I finally reach the structure. Cool enough the thing looks like a Sphinx. I painstakingly pull myself up the base and find the entrance; clutching my side with my right arm as it burns. It's actually quite small from what I imagined, but incredibly decorated. I step inside with thieving caution and shut the door behind me. My very first thoughts are to stay quiet and out of sight. I don't want to get into any fights right now because I simply don't think I'd win in my current state. Now that that's noted, I cast my vision around the interior. I'm in a gigantic room with hallways all over the place. To my disappointment, Bentley and Murray aren't waiting in here, but luckily nobody else is in this place either. Good. It's dimly lit with gold torches, there's all sorts of cool statues and straw baskets laying around, the floor is speckled with beautiful silk rugs, and the walls are covered in brilliant paintings. It's truly an impressive room. However, being a world class thief, I know for a fact these marvelous objects are fake; nobody would leave their valuables out in such open reach! I walk over and tang one of the golden containers with my cane. It's just an alloy; you can tell from the sound it makes. However, another, more pleasant sound comes from the inside. It sounds like a thick, wet plop. Do my ears deceive me?! I quickly remove the lid from the pot and find it full of water! Beautiful, clean, fresh water! Forgetting my notes to stay quiet, I throw my entire face inside the liquid heaven and drink up; splashing it all over myself like a fool. How lucky is this?!

After nearly ten whole minutes of chugging, I clean myself up with the leftover fluid. I take the belt off my head and wipe my temples clean with my glove; luckily it's not that bad of a cut. After that, I start examining the rest of my body, and to my benefit, find no other open wounds. I may have a few dark bruises on my gut and legs, but no blood. I hurriedly splash some water behind my neck and ears and pull myself away from the container. I don't want to spend too much time here; right now I'm an open target. I put the lid back on the container, turn around, and move on.

As I change directions from the water, I scan my area again as if someone were behind me; there isn't. However, I have a foreign sensation that someone's… watching me. Maybe it's the sheer emptiness of this room or my head isn't as clear as I thought, but I'm a thief. The way I usually get around town is by rooftop and street wire so I'm fairly out of sight. If anything, I'm the one that makes people feel like they're being watched! The idea of it being on my side is making me edgy.

I decide to look around.

I tip-toe around the corridors for awhile but nothing happens. I turn maybe 50 hallways but each one leads me to absolutely nothing. Unlike the fancy room with the water, the hallways are quite drab; just sandstone floors, walls, and ceilings with wooden torches to light the way. Speaking of which, who's keeping these things lit? There's no decorations anywhere besides the occasional mouse emblem pained on the walls. I tried examining the last one I came across but I can't quite remember what it represents… I feel like I've seen it before… But this is an ancient Sphinx! How could I?

I keep roaming around the halls but it's just as uneventful as before. I pass two more mouse emblems, turn down maybe 30 more passages, and there's no one to be seen. Though I still feel like I'm being watched… I almost wish I could just find someone to talk to already! I have so many questions I need answers for!

Where am I?

How did I get here?

Where are my friends?

How do I get back?

Not knowing the answers to these questions is eating away at my nerves and makes me very mad. What am I even doing here?! Did someone drop me here to die?! Was I abandoned?! Did I get into a fight and fall out of a plane?! Was I swept away from my sweet, country home in Kansas and brought to the magical world of Odds?! WHAT GIVES?!

I sit there thinking, propped up against the sandstone-hallway walls, and eventually find myself falling into a deep sleep. I have a dream about my friends. I'm on the tip of a blimp (for what reasons I'm unsure) and my buddies are safely on the ground. I try to find a way down to reach them, when all of a sudden... BAM! I'm in a makeshift sword fight with some weird skunk-dude! It's hard to distinguish his face, but it comes into closer view every time he tries stabbing me with his weapon. I know this guy. Who is he? I have to think a minute before it hits me: IT'S LE PARADOX! Now I remember! I am on this blimp fighting with LE Paradox over the good of my family. He played it dumb, tricked me out of my parachute, and left me stranded on the tip of this blimp spiraling into a hole he created through timespace!

THAT'S IT!

I finally understand why I'm here!

Now I know what happened!

I'm here on counts of the time warp!

Suddenly, I wake up.

There's a noise coming from down the hall.

I immediately jump to my feet and ready myself in an attack position. The sudden movement makes my side ache, but I push the pain away to focus on what's in front of me. Though I can't see anything, the faint sound of approaching footsteps grows louder and louder with every passing second. Then, out of nowhere, they stop.

For about half a minute there's a long pause of silence. I still can't see anybody but I get the strong sense they can see me. I call out.

"Who goes there?!"

I hear a couple more footsteps before they stop again.

Another ten seconds goes by before I say, "Look buddy, I don't want any trouble. I was lost in the desert and found this place. Why don't you and I just have a neighborly talk about things so we can be on our ways?"

This time there's no footsteps; just the sound of a clay pot smashing down the hall.

The sound startles me but I play it cool. "Oh okay," I begin, "being neighborly was too much for you. I see."

No response.

Not a single sound comes from the hall and I'm left there in silence. I still can't see any one, but I know they're there. I back up a few paces before I give it one last shot:

"What do you want from me?"

In a sudden burst, I'm attacked from behind and before I know it, there's a needle being jammed up into my neck. Whatever's in it feels like the Arctic Ocean started flowing through my veins and is now freezing me from the inside out. It makes my head spin and my body feel like a thousand pounds, but I'm not going to let it stop me! I turn to face the direction of my assailant and whip my cane as hard as I can. Unfortunately, they somehow maneuvered around me again and strike behind my knees. The blow forces me to he ground in a big THUD! I try to get up with all my might but my body feels too heavy and I eventually collapse. Just before I can slip into the darkness, a hand touches my shoulder and turns me over. I see the full face of my attacker and the shock swarms through my entire system.

It's Penelope.

AN: So that's that for the first chapter :D I pictured Sly, having fallen out of a time warp and smashing to the ground, to be a bit beaten up from the impact and even a little delusional from the long heat exposure. In other words, he wasn't feeling quite like himself ;D I know my writing blows but I'm hoping to improve myself over time. Thanks so much for reading and be sure to look out for chapter two! :D


	2. Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2:

~ Old Friends ~

Paris Hideout

2:32 a.m.

Bentley's Perspective:

I sit at my desk fiddling through my computer. It's been nearly three whole weeks since Sly's disappearance and nobody knows what happened to him, where he is, or how he's doing. The only thing we're certain of is he's lost somewhere in time and we have no idea how to bring him back. Even with all my genius, I'm stumped! I _do_ have a time machine that could take us back to find him, but in order for that to work we would need to know where he is first. It's like searching for a needle in a haystack without knowing if that needle is stuck in time 100 or 1000 years ago. Not only that, but it could also be lost anywhere on the face of the earth! How in the heck would you even _start_ a search like that?! It's incredibly frustrating and I worry myself daily.

To be honest, I'm a bit angry with Sly. He's always having to prove his family reputation, and by doing that, get's himself stuck in some crazy predicament Murray and I have to break him out of. He's my friend of course, and I'm always going to be there to back him up, but I wish he could give us a break some times. I mean, we wouldn't even be in this mess if he would have just stayed off the tip of that blimp in the first place!

Listen to me.

I must sound ridiculous…

I'm not really mad "with" Sly… I'm just… angered at the situation. I know he did the right thing by taking down Le Paradox, but I feel like it could have happened… differently.

Over the past three weeks, Murray, Carmelita and I have been immersing ourselves in our own activities to get our minds off things. Murray has been training in professional wrestling and Carmelita has been focusing on busting as many criminals as possible. Being the techno-genius I am, I play around with my computer in hopes to get a lead on where Sly is. Unfortunately, I've yet to find anything more than an empty search/data page. It's like this cycle of dead ends that keeps repeating itself; every time sending us deeper into the unknown. Just about the only thing any of us can do is prepare ourselves for the moment we get our lead on his location. Carmelita keeps arresting, Murray keeps punching, and I keep searching. However, though I try not to show it, I've secretly been readying myself for something more.

Just a week or so before Sly went missing, we took down my ex-girlfriend Penelope. It was a surprise to all of us we even had to… she was so sweet and innocent… but the little rat decided to betray us all and went rogue. She had these crazy plans of "taking over the world" and wanted me to help her. It goes without question I said no, but she's an extremely intelligent girl; her defeat was too pitiful! Though she was thrown in jail, she escaped basically the second they put her in; her whereabouts are currently unknown. The fact she broke out so fast and so fluently makes me believe her defeat was planned. But why she would do that, how it would help her, and what exactly she's planning is beyond me at this point. My mind is so focused on finding my friend that it's hard to concentrate on anything as complex as Penelope. Perhaps I'm worrying myself too much, though. Maybe she was just stupid after all and I overestimated her the entire time I knew her. But I still can't shake the feeling she's up to something… Oh well. Nothing I can do about that now either. I better get back to my search.

~/~

Unknown Location

2:39 a.m.

Sly's Perspective:

"_uugggghhhhrrrr"_

I let out a large groan as I slowly wake up from whatever sleep I have been in. Coming through, I feel numb and groggy; almost like someone with Insomnia would after not being able to sleep for days and finally getting a couple hours rest. Though you've slept, it's not enough and leaves you immobile and numb. The only thing different from that is this is less "natural." I can tell this sensation was brought upon by some sort of sedative. Bentley probably just shot me with another tranquilizer dart again on accident. Last time that happened, I remember the grogginess lasting for about an hour. All I have to do is sit down for a bit and it completely goes away; giving us all something to laugh about later. But for now, I feel like watching some TV. In fact, I think I may just watch some cartoons with Murray. I get out of bed to see how my friends are doing, when it comes to my sudden attention I can't move.

What?

I open my eyes only to be greeted by the disturbing darkness of a foreign room. Wherever I am, it's _incredibly_ hard to see and I question if my eyes are covered. I bulge my oculars to test that theory; luckily it's proven wrong. I allow my eyelids to relax and turn my attention over to the lack of my mobility. I shift around a bit and though I can't _see_ them, I can tell I'm bound against a heavy board of some sort (arms and legs) by thick, metal cuffs. With much power, I yank my limbs around in hopes of breaking free. Ten minutes goes by before I finally decide it's no use. Either my friends are playing a sick joke on me, or I've been kidnapped. Knowing my buddies, I'd say it's the latter.

Well this is just fantastic.

My thoughts are to stay quiet. I've been in a couple dilemmas like this before, so I've learned yelling and making noise only attracts the person that brought you to the situation in the first place. Frankly, I'm not very interested in meeting any kidnappers; I want to get the heck out of here! Though it's practically a waste of time, I return trying to break lose of the restraints. To my delight, my right arm feels like it's coming lose. I shift it over a bit and... _BAM! WOAH! BRIGHT LIGHTS!_

As if out of nowhere, the brightest lights you could ever imagine engulf my entire presence. The sudden intensity triggers the reflexes in my eyes to slam shut, however, it's so bright I can't even tell if my eyelids are open or closed. I'm now bound and blinded and I can't help but thinking whoever this is has an odd sense of humor.

Though the lights burn my eyes, I open them to take a look at whoever turned them on. To my surprise… nobody's here. I'm a bit confused for a moment, but my thoughts continually form into one idea: "That's almost a shame." I figured _somebody_ would have wanted to say hi to me or something; maybe tell me _why_ I'm here and tied up? Heck… I don't even remember what happened to me! Whoever this creep is… They know I'm awake now so what's the point of me trying to escape? I'm sure they have a camera on me or something too, so even if I _did _break out, it wouldn't mean much.

Looking around, I can see the room in full detail. It's rather crowded; full of messy stacks of papers, mounds of cords placed all over the room in random piles, there's numerous machines here and there (half of them broken), various science beakers fill the tops of old desks, and then my eyes travel to the strange object hanging directly above me on the ceiling.

Hello

Whatever the contraption is, it sends a prickle down my spine. The way it's _shaped_ says crooked pain and I'm half wondering half worrying about what it's used for. The body of the machine is constructed almost like a praying mantis arm with a giant syringe at the end. It's connected to circular pivots so I can tell it's designed to move around a lot. There's various blinking lights of many colors spotted around the machine's body. I notice a long tube filled with some sort of red liquid connected to the base and it appears to drain out through the needle-tip. The entire thing looks like it belongs on a Sci-Fi movie rather than dangling above me like I'm some sort of lab rat.

I try to remember anything that may have led me to being stuck in this strange premises. As far as I know, I haven't ticked anyone off lately, I haven't stolen anyone's precious, personal, or sentimental treasures, and I don't believe I'm being filmed for one of those TV-reaction shows. Maybe it's someone I've already met before getting a crack at me for revenge? I lay my head back to relax on the table-like board my body is chained to, and allow my mind to think through all the people I've ever made enemies with. Perhaps this is the work of Mz. Ruby, the voodoo master? Or maybe Octavio? No; probably not him. Or is it- !

Just then, the sound of a door being slammed shut emits from behind me. It's very loud and echoes throughout the room. In addition to the noise, lots of fast-paced footsteps come racing in through the entrance. I swivel my head around to see who they belong to, but the board permits me from doing so. I pull on my cuffs some but go nowhere. I didn't expect to, but it was worth a shot. The louder and closer the footsteps become, the more my anxiety and heart beat grows stronger.

It's hard to say how many feet are headed towards my position, but just as they are about to reach me, they abruptly stop. The way the crowd of people halted just before confronting me spikes a memory:

- _I'm in an Egyptian tomb being pursued by an unknown foe. I can hear the gait of a single being and just before they strike, the sound of their stride stops without notice. As the memory plays through, I'm thrown onto the ground and above me hovers the face of an old friend. _-

The recollection slaps my mind with sudden reality, but before I can fully make sense of things, I'm yanked backwards with brutal force into a laying position. The table flies backwards and I'm hit with a bit of shock; I didn't really expect _that_ to happen. The second I open my eyes, I'm met by not one, but _two_ familiar faces meeting my gaze with a sadist's passion.

"Hello, Cooper." says Penelope.

"It's been a long time." states The Contessa.


End file.
